Tag Archives: interstellar

After every big movie comes out in theatres there will always be sensationalist articles critiquing the movie, pulling on one or two loose strands in hopes that the entire fabric of reality comes undone. I read one for Godzilla when I came out and I’m ashamed to say that for a few minutes while reading it I actually began to dislike the movie, and then I remembered how I felt while I watched the movie: awestruck. Of course the movie wasn’t perfect, but that didn’t stop me from liking it. These troll articles are clever in their use of controversial subject matter to over-hype something and make the worst out of it. They like to throw the feminist card in there to get people riled up, and when read out of context, or if you haven’t seen the movie yourself, it might even make a lot of sense. They will complain when there aren’t enough female leads in the movie, and when it does live up to the gender equality standard they will complain that the women weren’t “well written”. Even if these women were three-dimensional, emotional characters there will always be something wrong with them, something wrong with the way they were portrayed. As if they were the authority on writing women. Other tactics include insulting the naming tactics for the characters, poking gently at possible racism and using a director’s past work to undermine him. Some of it can be reasonable (doesn’t mean that it is), but most of it is exaggerated way out of proportion.

When it comes to critiques I much prefer this:

So I watched Interstellar yesterday with a couple of friends, and I thought it was a great movie. I thought what they tried to achieve with the plot did not warrant harsh scrutiny in terms of science, because this was not a space documentary. This is a fictional movie, and it might that mean I don’t have standards when it come to movies, but all I was looking for from this movie was to be entertained, not to be educated. And I was. To be honest, the trailer did not intrigue me at all, so I was pleasantly surprised. I walked out of the movie really wanting to play Mass Effect. The plot twist at the end was corny and familiar, and glorified human capabilities. I had the same wariness for the trust that the universe places in humanity as I did when I watched The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)(which I did not like mainly for that reason), but that is understandable.

Of course when I read “The 7 biggest problems with Interstellar” I was immediately aware from past experiences that this was what I am going to coin as a “Troll Article”, which I guess could be classified under sensationalist journalism. It was not a real critique of the movie, it was shameless and desperate bashing. I was ready to write another post another article about how mad those posts make me, because apparently that is what this blog has become, but halfway through thinking about that I changed my mind. I realized that instead of watching the movie and never thinking about it again, this article impassioned me again into using my brain. Were the women poorly written? I didn’t think so, or at least I didn’t notice. Were there plot holes? Unfortunately. Did the dystopian world make sense? I didn’t see enough of it to form a conclusion, but it doesn’t matter because that’s not really what the movie is about. And ultimately, did I like the movie? Yes. It was intense, and I was stressed out through a lot of it, but I liked it. And I’m much more aware of my reasons for liking it now and can defend my position.

I’d like to say that this was a wonderful world where people look out for each other and Troll Articles are written to elicit critical thinking. That would be a glass-half-full type of assumption to make, and I’m not an optimist if I can help it. And even if these articles were written for that purpose there will always be people out there that will miss the point, unless clearly written out for them. I guess my point then, would be to think about troll articles even if they are infuriating. Like my rant last week, I had to actually stop and think about why the article was making me mad before I could put it into words and turn it into a post, and I didn’t write it in order to open the OP’s eyes. I didn’t want to change his mind, because I have come to understand that many people have closed their minds so firmly that they can’t even understand their own behaviour. I wrote it for my own benefit, to understand my own mind, and for the benefit for people who have kept their minds open, have yet to think about the issue.